Illegal gas godown catches fire Wood godown gutted in fire at Kishanpole Bazzar
TRAGEDY Illegal LPG cylinder business was being run from the house, two injured in blast
:Two members of a family sustained injuries when a fire broke out in a double-storey house after a LPG cylinder blast at Vidyadhar Nagar here on Thursday, fire department officials said.
Around noon, 18-year-old Sonu was thrown off his feet after the explosion, and hit the wall of his rented room at Sector 8. Trying to make sense of the situation and nursing the sharp pain in his right elbow, Sonu saw his house was on fire.
Upon seeing the flames engulf their one-room house, his aged mother pulled a bed-sheet and gave it to her young daughter-inlaw, who was taking a bath. She wrapped her daughter-in-law in the sheet, lifted her, and ran out of the house. Sonu and his 13-yearold sister Bharti also escaped, during which some of Bharti’s hair got burnt.
“We could smell a gas leak for some time, and suddenly there was a blast,” Sonu said.
For the past three months, Sonu and his family have been living on rent in that room situated on the first floor of the double-storey house. The room behind theirs is rented by Sonu’s maternal uncle and his family of three. They all belong to a small village in Surat district of Gujarat. Sonu and his neighbours said the room below theirs has been rented by two brothers, Dinesh and Vinod, for over a year. They said the brothers used to supply LPG cylinders in black. “They had a machine by which they used to transfer gas from smaller cylinders to big cylinders and then sell them in black,” Sonu’s maternal aunt Rekha said.
JAIPUR
All the neighbours standing around confirmed this.
Rekha said all of them had complained to their landlord about it a few times. “He told us that that is their business and they will continue doing it. He told us to leave the house if we are not okay with it,” Rekha said.
Neighbours saw the two brothers escaping after the blast.
Chief Fire Officer (CFO) Jalaj Ghasiya confirmed that the fire was triggered due to a blast during the transfer of LPG gas from one cylinder to another. Though Ghasiya said the fire brigade reached the spot within 5 to 10 minutes of receiving the call, Sonu’s family members and neighbours said the fire tender arrived at least half an hour after the call was made.
Looking at the charred remnants of her belongings with tears in her eyes, Sonu’s mother said, “We have nothing left except the clothes on our backs. Everything is ruined.” A family of five had been charred to death in a fire at a two-storeyed independent house in Vidyadhar Nagar on January 14 this year. A fire had also broken out in a mall in the area last week..
: A godown in Kishanpole Bazzar caught fire on Thursday. The fire spread to a large area and it took nine hours and 15 fire tenders to completely douse the flames. There were no casualties.
“The intensity of the fire was such that flames went up as high as 10 metre. Vehicles that were parked 20 feet away also got charred. Windows and doors of some of the houses on the opposite side also got burnt,” chief fire officer Jalaj Ghasiya said.
Ghasiya said that over 50 people, including the elderly, were trapped in a haveli nearby. The entrance to the haveli was next to the godown, which made matters worse. “We climbed up over the shops in Kishanpole Bazaar to reach those who were trapped. All of them were rescued safely,” Ghasiya said.
He said that they received information about the fire around 2.45 am and it was 12 noon by the time the operation was over. “The burnt wood had transformed into heaps of embers. Even if you sprinkle water on them, they continue to burning from below. So it took time for us to extinguish them completely,” he said.
JAIPUR FIRE SPREAD TO A LARGE AREA AND IT TOOK NINE HOURS AND 15 FIRE TENDERS TO DOUSE THE FIRE